-
The Chrysanthemums
The high gray-flannel fog of winter
closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and
from all
the rest of the world. On
every side
it sat like a
lid on the mountains and made of the great valley
a closed pot. On the broad, level
land
floor the gang plows bit deep
and left the black earth shining like
metal where the shares had cut. On the foothill
ranches across
the Salinas 1~iver, the
yellow
stubble fields
seemed to be bathed in pale cold sunshine, but
there was no sunshine in the valley
now
in December. The thick
willow scrub along the river flamed
with sharp and positive yellow leaves.
It was a time
of quiet and of waiting. The air was cold and
tender. A light wind blew up from
the
southwest so that the farmers
were mildly hopeful of a good rain
before long; but fog and rain did not go together.
Across the river, on Henry Allen's
foothill ranch there was little work to be done,
for the hay
was cut and stored and the
orchards were plowed up to
receive the rain deeply when it should come. The
cattle on the higher
slopes were
becoming shaggy
and rough-
coated.
Elisa Allen, working in her flower
garden, looked down across the yard and saw Henry,
her
husband, talking to two men in
business suits. The three
of them stood by the tractor shed, each man with
one foot on the side of
the little
Ford-son. They smoked
cigarettes and studied the machine as
they talked.
Elisa watched them for a moment and
then went back to her work. She was thirty-five.
Her
face was lean and strong and her
eyes
were
as
clear
as
water.
Her
figure
looked
blocked
and
heavy
in
her
gardening
costume,
a
man's
black hat pulled low down
over
her
eyes,
clod-hopper
shoes,
a
figured
print
dress
almost
completely
covered
by
a
big
corduroy apron with four big pockets
to
hold
the
snips,
the
trowel
and
scratcher,
the
seeds
and
the
knife
she
worked
with.
She
wore
heavy leather gloves to protect her
hands while she worked.
She
was cutting down the old year's chrysanthemum
stalks with a pair of short and powerful
scissors. She looked down toward
the men by the tractor shed
now and then. Her face was eager and mature and
handsome; even her
work with the
scissors was
over-eager,
over-powerful. The chrysanthemum stems seemed too
small and easy for her energy.
She brushed a
cloud of hair out of her eyes with the back of her
glove, and left a smudge of
earth on
her cheek in doing it.
Behind her stood the neat white farm
house with red geraniums close-banked around it as
high as
the windows. It was a hard-
swept looking little house, with hard-
polished windows, and a clean mud-mat on the front
steps.
Elisa cast another glance toward the
tractor shed. The strangers were getting into
their Ford
coupe. She took off a glove
and put
her strong fingers
down into the forest of new green chrysanthemum
sprouts that were growing
around the
old roots. She spread
the
leaves and looked down among the close-growing
stems. No aphids were there, no sowbugs or
snails or cutworms. Her terrier
fingers destroyed such
pests before they could get started.
Elisa started
at the sound of her husband's voice. He had come
near quietly, and he leaned
over the
wire fence that protected her
flower garden from cattle and dogs and
chickens.
Elisa straightened her back and pulled
on the gardening glove again.
this
coming year.
on her face
there was a little smugness.
You've got a
gift with things,
had this year were ten
inches
across. I wish you'd
work out in the orchard and raise some apples that
big.
Her eyes sharpened.
had it.
She could stick anything in
the ground and make it grow. She said
it was having planters' hands that knew how to do
it.
to?
those thirty
head of three-year-
old steers. Got
nearly my own price, too.
Salinas for
dinner at a restaurant,
and
then to a picture show--to celebrate, you
see.
Henry put on his joking tone.
bring down those steers from
the
hill. It'll take us
maybe two hours. We'll go in town about five and
have dinner at the Cominos
Hotel. Like
that?
She said,
She heard her husband
calling Scotty down by the barn. And a little
later she saw the two
men ride up the
pale yellow hillside in
search of the steers.
There was a
little square sandy bed kept for rooting the
chrysanthemums. With her trowel she
turned the soil over and over, and
smoothed it and patted it
firm. Then she dug ten parallel trenches to
receive the sets. Back at the
chrysanthemum bed she pulled
out the little crisp
shoots, trimmed off the leaves of each one with
her scissors and laid it on a
small
orderly pile.
A squeak of wheels and plod of hoofs
came from the road. Elisa looked up. The country
road
ran along the dense bank of
willows
and
cotton-woods
that
bordered
the
river,
and
up
this
road
came
a
curious
vehicle,
curiously drawn. It
was an old spring-
wagon, with a round
canvas top on it like the cover of a prairie
schooner. It was drawn by an old
bay
horse and a little grey-and-
white
burro. A big stubble-bearded man sat between the
cover flaps and drove the crawling team.
Underneath the wagon, between
the hind wheels, a lean and
rangy mongrel dog walked sedately. Words were
painted on the canvas
in clumsy,
crooked letters.
pans,
knives,
scissors,
lawn
mores,
Fixed.
Two
rows
of
articles,
and
the
triumphantly
definitive
paint had run down in
little sharp points beneath each letter.
Elisa, squatting on the ground, watched
to see the crazy, loose-jointed wagon pass by. But
it
didn't pass. It turned into the farm
road in front of her house,
crooked old wheels skirling and squeaking. The
rangy dog darted from
between the
wheels and ran
ahead.
Instantly the two ranch shepherds flew out at him.
Then all three stopped, and with stiff and
quivering tails, with taut
straight legs, with ambassadorial
dignity, they slowly circled, sniffing daintily.
The caravan pulled
up to Elisa's wire
fence and
stopped.
Now
the
newcomer
dog,
feeling
outnumbered,
lowered
his
tail
and
retired
under
the
wagon with raised hackles and bared
teeth.
The man on the
wagon seat called out,
Elisa laughed. I see he is.
How soon does he generally get started?
The
man
caught
up
her
laughter
and
echoed
it
heartily.
not
for
weeks
and
weeks,
over the
wheel. The horse and the donkey drooped like
unwatered flowers.
Elisa saw that he was a
very big man. Although his hair and beard were
graying, he did not
look old. His worn
black suit was
wrinkled
and
spotted
with
grease.
The
laughter
had
disappeared
from
his
face
and
eyes
the
moment
his laughing voice ceased. His
eyes were dark, and they were full of
the brooding that gets in the eyes of teamsters
and of sailors.
The calloused hands he
rested
on the wire fence
were cracked, and every crack was a black line. He
took off his battered hat.
Los Angeles
highway?
Elisa stood up and shoved the thick
scissors in her apron pocket.
winds
around and then fords the river.
I don't think your team could pull
through the sand.
He replied with some
asperity,
He smiled for a second.
highway there.
He drew a big
finger down the chicken wire and made it sing.
go from Seattle to San Diego and
back every year. Takes all
my time. About six months each way. I aim to
follow nice weather.
Elisa took off her gloves
and stuffed them in the apron pocket with the
scissors. She touched
the under edge of
her man's hat,
searching
for fugitive hairs.
He
leaned
confidentially
over
the
fence.
you
noticed
the
writing
on
my
wagon.
I
mend pots and sharpen knives and
scissors. You got any of
them things to do?
'em, but I know how. I got a
special
tool. It's a little
bobbit kind of thing, and patented. But it sure
does the trick.
make it like new so you
don't have
to buy no new
ones. That's a saving for you.
His face fell
to an exaggerated sadness. His voice took on a
whining undertone.
thing to do today.
Maybe I won't
have no
supper tonight. You see I'm off my regular road. I
know folks on the highway clear from
Seattle to San Diego. They save
their things for me to
sharpen up because they know I do it so good and
save them money.
His eyes left
her face and fell to searching the ground. They
roamed about until they came to
the
chrysanthemum bed where she
had been working.
The irritation
and resistance melted from Elisa's face.
whites and yellows. I raise them
every year, bigger than
anybody around here.
He changed his tone
quickly.
The man leaned farther over the fence.
the nicest garden you ever seen.
Got
nearly
every
kind
of
flower
but
no
chrysanthemums.
Last
time
I
was
mending
a
copper-
bottom washtub for her (that's a hard
job but I do it good), she said to me,
'If you ever run acrost some nice chrysanthemums I
wish
you'd try to get me a few seeds.'
That's what she told
me.
Elisa's
eyes
grew
alert
and
eager.
couldn't
have
known
much
about
chrysanthemums.
You can
raise them from seed, but
it's much easier to root the little
sprouts you see there.
along with you.
They'll take root in
the
pot if you keep them damp. And then she can
transplant them.
out her dark
pretty hair.
them in a
flower pot, and you can take them right with you.
Come into the yard.
While
the
man
came
through
the
picket
fence
Elisa
ran
excitedly
along
the
geranium-bordered path
to the back of the house.
And she returned carrying a big red
flower pot. The gloves were forgotten now. She
kneeled on
the ground by the starting
bed and
dug up the sandy
soil
with
her fingers and
scooped it into the bright new flower pot. Then
she
picked up the little pile of shoots
she had prepared. With her
strong fingers she pressed them into the sand and
tamped around them
with her knuckles.
The man
stood over her.